Strive to Survive: A Bucc6 Special
by Buccaneers6
Summary: Shadow the Cutthroat, a bandit from a poor town, Knuckles the Echidna, a theif from a poor town, and Miles 'Tails' Prower, the leader of Her Majesty's Royal Guard, must go into unknown lands to rescue the world's greatest hero, a mission that the Queen believes they will fail. But will Shadow's undying heart, Knuckles spirit and Miles' Toughness be enough to save him?


**I don't own Sonic or Sega. **

Saga One: The Thief, The Cutthroat and the Guard

_In the Kingdom of Mobia, things are never as they seem. More so, when hero Sonic the Hedgehog vanishes off the face off the Earth. Who, or what, will save him? The answer lies in a tavern in the relatively unknown town of Metropolis…_

When the Queen's men burst into the Wicked Warlord, everyone shot up nervously. The only time the Queen's men burst into the tavern was when they wanted a criminal… and those showed up quite often. But, one, a hedgehog, still sat slumped over, a cloak concealing his eyes.

"You!" shouted the leader, a fox. The figure didn't move.

"Yes?"

"The Queen requests your presence."

"Tell her I don't give a crap."

"You will, or we'll have a chop block reserved for you."

"You want a fight?" asked the figure, tossing his cloak back to reveal his head, black with red stripes.

"I'll give you the last damn fight you'll all ever have!" he pulled out two axes and charged.

_The Queen's Palace, 12:30 PM_

"You decided it was a good idea to kill _seven _of my best guards?" shouted Queen Sally.

"At the time." said the hedgehog. Sally slapped him hard across the face.

"I should have you beheaded! I should send you to the depths of Hell myself!"

"But you haven't. So why am I here?" asked the hedgehog, attempting to sound annoyed to piss off the queen.

"Because, rat." said Miles 'Tails' Prower, the leader of the royal guard. He had a bandage across his arm.

"We need you to go on a quest."

"A quest!" said the hedgehog with false enthusiasm.

"A quest to find Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Good luck, foxtrot. He went to the Devil's Cross, he's dead."

"I don't care if he's dead or damned to Hell, I want him back in this palace!"

"Alright, Acorn. I can't do this alone, though. Who's going with me?" The door to the Queen's hall opened.

"Get your %#*&^!$ hands off of me, %&$!#!" said a voice. The man was slammed on the ground and was revealed to be a red echidna. He threw a punch at one of the guards who in turn cracked him upside the head with the butt of his spear. The hedgehog looked at the queen.

"You think we're gonna get out of there alive?" he asked. The queen laughed.

"No, I don't, and I hope you don't. You all have a criminal past, large ones at that. He's a thief and you were the leader of the Metropolis Bandits, who have caused more than 500 deaths. You are Shadow the Cutthroat."

"Correct. And that's…"

"Knuckles the Echidna."

"So, that isn't all who's coming with us, is it?" asked Shadow.

"No. Miles will." said the queen.

"Why?" asked Shadow, now really annoyed.

"You could have escaped as soon as I set you free." said Sally.

"Well, dammit, you figured out my plan." said Shadow sarcastically.

"Anyways, you leave tomorrow. You're lucky, cutthroat."

"More like bad luck, being stuck here with a jackass like you." That earned Shadow another gracious slap in the face and they dragged him to his bedroom.

_The Black Meadow, 5:00 AM_

"Black Meadow Demons live in this meadow."

"That's a story designed to scare children, cutthroat. They don't exist." said the thief, Knuckles.

"I've ran raids all through these meadows. One day, I broke from my crew, and I was looking for firewood when I saw one. I was like a hedgehog, only it was black as the night sky. It dripped it's blackness, it was like water, but black as a raven, and it struck the ground and tainted the grass with black. It stared at me and faded into oblivion." said Shadow.

"Bullcrap." replied Miles.

"I agree with Idiot. They aren't real." said Knuckles.

They kept walking. Shadow glanced off to the side and his eyes widened.

"Duck!" he shouted. Something, no one could identify it, flew past him. They all glanced to the direction to see the horrifying truth.

It was a Black Meadow Demon, and it was exactly as Shadow had described it.

"You can't kill it with regular weapons! You need to hit it with fire to kill it! It counteracts its shadow!" Knuckles smiled. He ran rummaged through his quiver until he found his one flaming arrow he'd stole from a guard the previous day. He took out his bow and arrow… to see it had unstrung again.

"Gods dammit!" he said, beginning to tie it back to the bow.

Meanwhile, Shadow the Cutthroat was absolutely hammering away with his double axes. His armor wasn't exactly top notch and his chainmail had several holes in it, all in vital places, of course. The axes did nothing but buy him time, and in his life as a bandit, literally, time was money. And he liked to do his business in as quick amount of time as possible. Miles was attacking with his spear, which did absolutely nothing.

"Knuckles! What the hell are you doing!" asked Shadow, gritting his teeth as he felt a searing pain enter his hip.

"Hold on, Cutthroat! Give me time!"

"I've given you more time than you've had in jail, hurry up!" replied Shadow.

"Got it! Say goodbye, beast!" He drew his flaming arrow and shot it straight at the Demon.

It stood for a second, and exploded.

Shadow was thrown high in the air and landed with a hard thud. Miles braced himself and didn't get it as bad, while Knuckles smiled at his triumph. They went to go check on Shadow. He lie there, clearly in a huge amount of pain, but smiling.

"Wait 'till the boys hear about this."

_The Black Meadow, 7:30 PM_

They were sitting over a campfire.

"I wonder what they'll all say when I come home, saving Sonic. They'll think I'm the bravest man in the world." Wondered Miles aloud. Shadow sighed.

"Do you know what my mother used to tell me when I was a kid?" said Shadow.

"What, Cutthroat?" asked Knuckles.

"A man who flees from battle is a coward. A man who charges into the fray, a man who laughs at danger, has false hope. A man who stands his ground and waits for his enemy is really waiting for the end to come. There is no such thing as bravery."

"Why would someone say that crap?" sneered Miles. Shadow grabbed him by his chainmail collar.

"I'll tell you why! You royal dogs pay no attention to the outsiders, to the towns like us! Towns so poor that people eat dirt and die of infection, towns so poor that we sleep on the ground, towns so poor that the one tavern we have is owned by the freaking government, towns so poor that the currency we use isn't coins, we use water. Water! Towns so poor that if someone finds a piece of bread he's likely to be murdered in cold blood for it! Do you know why I became a bandit! I became a bandit because I learned to wield an axe, so damn good that I became respected! Respect is worth ten times more than your little coins! I needed to make a living, to help, and I became a bandit! I took lives, yes, but in actuality I'm doing the same thing as you bastards! Tell your so-called queen that her heart weighs as much as her non-existent spine and that she and the rest of her townspeople can go to hell!"

Miles had his eyes wide open, so shocked that he didn't realize he could have arrested him for treason on the spot until years later. Knuckles nodded in respect.

"Aye, the same here. I can steal what my family needs… which is everything. Those royal swine don't care about us. I'm going to sleep."

Shadow and Knuckles both went to sleep, leaving Miles to ponder over what the two said… and how it quite possibly could be true.

_The Uncharted Lands, 5:00 AM_

No one who had a working body and a soul went anywhere near the Black Meadow. Nothing period went within the uncharted lands, which is why it's uncharted. Various expeditions have gone to this place, and none ever came back; except for one, a rouge of the bat species, who was the one to confirm that Sonic had indeed reached the Devil's Cross. But he also reported that he waited for three days and he didn't come back out. They were at the edge of what many called the Edge of Reality. Why? Life as you knew it stopped at that border.

"Welcome to the end of your lives." Shadow joked.

"This isn't the time to be funny. I risked my life to do a mission with you two. We have an objective."

"And you have a mouth that needs to be shut." said Knuckles. They continued walking forward until a pair of eyes opened in the sand.

"Sandserpent!" shouted Knuckles in alarm.

The giant snake arose from its hiding place, its beautiful patterned skin glinting in the sunlight. Its tongue, the length and width of a canoe, flickered out twice.

"It's beautiful." said Miles.

"And now it's dead!" roared Shadow, charging up to it and hacking at it with his axes. That made the monster roar in pain. Miles took his spear and threw it in the monster's eye, blinding it, and Knuckles finished it off with an arrow through the heart. When Shadow walked back to them, Miles smiled.

"I thought only people with false hope charged into battle." Shadow returned the smile.

"I knew we could beat that thing."

"Everyone…" said Knuckles nervously.

"What is it?" asked Miles.

"What the hell is that thing?" he shouted. Sure enough, a silhouette appeared in the distance.

"That, my dear friends, is a dragon. And it's coming this way."

_The Devil's Cross, 6:00 AM_

Sonic was beaten, bruised, cut, and everything else in-between. They were late. They hadn't come yet. But they would, in time. They would come and ask them questions. They would ask him about the army, about his beloved Sally. They would ask him about when the guard was down. But he wouldn't answer any of these questions. He would spit in their faces and he would reply with sarcastic remarks and this would get him more beaten. Finally, they asked him the question he could answer. They would ask him if he was going insane yet. But he wasn't. He wasn't. He wasn't insane…

_The Uncharted Lands, 7:00 PM_

"That was awesome! Did you seen the move with my spear-"

"Yeah, that was so cool! And my arrow-"

"That was amazing! And the way I swung those axes? Man, the readers would have loved to see that fight!"

They were standing over a campfire eating roasted dragon, talking about how awesome they were.

"It was cool, but we need to get more serious. We're in the heart of the most unforgiving place on the planet. We take watches so we don't get killed in our sleep. This is extremely vital, because I'll be damned if I don't get out of this place alive-"

"I bet you will." sneered Shadow.

"Congratulations, you just got the first shift."

"More fun for me. Knuckles, you get the last shift."

"More sleep for me. Miles, you take the second shift."

"More…more…whatever. Let's set up our cots.

"What's a cot?" asked Shadow and Knuckles at the same time.

"You've never slept in a cot? It's like a bed-"

"I've heard of those."

"You two are hopeless. Goodnight."

_The Devil's Cross, 7:30 AM_

"Where are your armies?" asked the lieutenant demon.

"Go to Hell." Spat back Sonic. They beat him brutally.

"What about your queen?" asked the demon again.

"Never."

If you can get beaten so bad that your soul can fly out of you, they were the first ones to do it. Sonic lay beaten in a pool of his own blood.

"Have you succumbed to insanity yet?" asked the demon. Sonic looked up. In his eyes was a sad mist. He opened his mouth but know words came out. Finally, he whispered.

"N…n…yes."


End file.
